


Do not let this parting grieve thee

by Unlikelyoptimist



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Steggy - Freeform, The scene that should have been
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unlikelyoptimist/pseuds/Unlikelyoptimist
Summary: “Come on, Cap. I know you’ve turned down every kind of therapy they’ve offered you, which I’d criticize you for if I hadn’t been doing the same thing, but you deserve at least this much. This version of B.A.R.F. is actually self contained, for privacy. You’ll see it on the glasses, but I won’t see a thing.” 
Considering it, Steve toyed with the glasses, tapping one finger along the silver rims. He was trying hard to take the offering at face value, and not take into account what Tony might be hoping for besides catharsis for a friend.
Once again, the knot in his throat was tied tight; no longer just inside of his throat, it seemed to have looped around his whole neck, tugging tight until he struggled for breath. There was a prickling pain in his chest that felt like the beginnings of an asthma attack whenever he let it settle for too long. Whenever he remembered all the times he had failed to be there for Peggy, paralleled bitterly by the fact she had always been there when he needed her, when it was important.
Swallowing hard, he folded the glasses open.
* * * * *Set in the conference room mid-CA:CW; Tony calls a brief ceasefire in light of Peggy's death to give Steve the closure he needs.





	

“You look like you’re having a rough day.”

Steve glanced up from the table. For once, Tony didn’t bother with the stretched-thin smile.

“Can I sit?”

“I’m not the one running the show. Not my place,” Steve remarked mildly. A muscle in Tony’s jaw twitched, and for a moment, Steve thought Tony might yell. Instead, he sighed, and rubbed a hand along his jaw.

“I’m asking you, Steve.”

Not for the first time since the Accords had been dropped on a table in front of them, Steve felt a rush of empathy for Tony. He might not agree with how Tony was seeing things from the other side of the table, but Steve was self aware enough to know that he didn’t exactly make it easy on anyone looking for a compromise.

“Sure, Tony. Take a seat.”

As he did so, Tony pulled something from his pocket, sliding it across the table to Steve. Some of the tension left Tony’s shoulders, the nervous energy that constantly seemed to buzz through his system steadying.

“I didn’t know it was her funeral, when you left.” When Steve met Tony’s eyes, his gaze was all wariness and hesitation, the look of a soldier at war being offered a parley he didn’t quite trust.

“I met her a couple times.” Tony wasn’t looking at Steve; instead, he had seized upon a pen sitting on the table, spinning it absently between two fingers. “She and Dad were close, worked on a bunch of stuff together, which naturally made me hate her for a while. I warmed up to her when I got older.”

The unpleasant knot that had subsided in the ragged rush of adrenaline, of the search and the chase and the capture, was returning rapidly. He nodded curtly, and for once, Tony cut himself off before someone else did.

“Sorry. You know that offering emotional comfort isn’t really my forte. But that’s why I brought this.” Tony reached across the table to tap the device, and for the first time, Steve held it up to his eyes. It was a small disk, and Steve raised his eyebrows.

“Called B.A.R.F. - not kidding,” he added, catching sight of Steve’s incredulous expression. “What can I say? I’m in tech, not marketing. They can rename it when I roll it out for mass production. Anyways, B.A.R.F stands for Binaurily Augmented Retro Framing. Fancy way to say that it taps-“

“Into memories, yeah.” Steve’s lips twitched; he never quite got tired of cutting off Tony in a midstream explanation of tech that he assumed no one else understood yet. After all the ribbing he’d gotten for being unable to adjust to the 21st century over one old-fashioned pair of slacks that had shown up in a paparazzi photo, he felt he deserved a moment of satisfaction. “I read an article about it. Presentation at MIT, right?”

Nodding, Tony fished what appeared to be a pair of aviators out of his pocket, sliding them across the table.

“Little reductive, considering that what it actually does is interfaces with the hippocampus and proactively seeks out traumatic experiences to help repair, but sure. It taps into memories.” The glasses sat near Steve’s hand; if he had been reluctant to pick up the initial tech, which he figured was the projector, he was even more hesitant to put on the glasses.

“Come on, Cap. I know you’ve turned down every kind of therapy they’ve offered you, which I’d criticize you for if I hadn’t been doing the same thing, but you deserve at least this much. This version’s actually self contained, for privacy. You’ll see it on the glasses, but I won’t see a thing.”

Considering it, Steve toyed with the glasses, tapping one finger along the silver rims. He was trying hard to take the offering at face value, and not take into account what Tony might be hoping for besides catharsis for a friend.

Once again, the knot in his throat was tied tight; no longer just inside of his throat, it seemed to have looped around his whole neck, tugging tight until he struggled for breath. There was a prickling pain in his chest that felt like the beginnings of an asthma attack whenever he let it settle for too long. Whenever he remembered all the times he had failed to be there for Peggy, paralleled bitterly by the fact she had always been there when he needed her, when it was important.

Swallowing hard, he folded the glasses open.

“Okay, Tony. I’ll try it your way. Do I just…?”

“Didn’t read that far in the article?” It was a cheap jab, but it made Steve smile. At the very least, for better or for worse, he could always rely on Tony to take the opportunity to crack a joke whether it was advisable or not. “Just put them on, and I’ll turn it on from here. It’ll sync with the projector. Ready?”

“Sure.”

* * *

  
It was 1945, and the bar was loud. The lighting was dim and yellow, filtered through air heavy with the smoke of army regulation cigarettes. Alcohol was flowing free and fast; when you drank during a war, it was with the knowledge that every night might be your last, and some men had already come too close to that reality for comfort. For every man drinking with raucous abandon, there was another raising a glass to a more somber note, for a comrade fallen, a brother left behind on a battlefield.

For the men of the 107th, the latter was more common than for most. After months in a HYDRA holding cell, most of them had seen more than they’d reckoned for of war already.

For Steve, it hurt to sit among them, practically clean of battle scars, his title only ceremonial until a few hours ago. Not for the first time, he wished that the drink in his hand was actually doing something other than tasting like very watery mud.

Still, the night was far from gloomy, overall. To be alive was enough to celebrate, and Steve had already heard more toasts and bought more rounds than he could count. Just as he finished his conversation - and for some reason, it was fuzzy as to who it was with - the door opened.

When Peggy Carter entered a room on a normal day, she was hard to miss. When she entered a bar full of soldiers wearing a red dress and a pair of heels, hard became impossible, and Steve’s wasn’t the only head turning. On instinct, he snapped to attention. 

“Ma’am.”

“Howard has some equipment for you to try. Tomorrow morning?”

She could have sent someone else to ask. Even Steve, poor as he was on picking up social cues, wasn’t blind enough to miss what she wanted.

“Sounds good.”

“I see your top squad is prepping for duty.” There was no mistaking the amusement in her voice as she nodded at a table of men near the back, all singing loudly and swaying from side to side. Dum-Dum, despite having crowed about being the sturdiest drinker of the group, looked as though he were about to slide beneath the table for a well-earned nap.

“Don’t like music?”

“I do, actually. I might even, when this is all over, go dancing.”

“Why wait, when it could all be over tomorrow?”

He had never gotten a grasp on how to say what he meant, what he wanted. When it was giving a speech, when it was sticking up for what he believed in, when it was to troops or to politicians, or to people who he knew needed it - that was different. Talking about himself, about his life, was much harder.

“I’m waiting for the right partner.” It was a question, although it wasn’t phrased like one. Peggy was willing to wait for what she wanted, and what she wanted was for him to be ready. He hadn’t been, then, but he was now.

“Don’t think you gotta wait any longer, then.”

He offered his hand.

She took it, and he drew her close, almost reverently. Her body was soft against his, which almost surprised him. Peggy was always so steadfast, as immovable as a mountain and with the driving force of a tank. It made him forget, sometimes, about the parts of her that were delicate, that were vulnerable, and it made him all the more in awe when he remembered.

There was no jukebox, no pianist, but there was music. A few of the men were singing further back in the bar, the wheeze of a mouth harmonica coming to life.

 

_Fare thee well, for I must leave thee,_   
_Do not let this parting grieve thee,_   
_And remember that the best of friends_   
_Must part, must part._

 

“We waited too damn long, Peg,” he breathed in her ear, the hand at her waist trembling. It took most of his concentration just to keep from stepping on her feet. She was guiding them both, steering them carefully in a slow circle. Her breath fanned across his neck, and he looked down to meet her eyes, the brown shining brightly even in the dim light.

“Don’t long for what we could have had, Steve. Treasure what we did.” Her voice was soft, gentle in a way she never dared to be around others. Even when Steve could forget how hard she’d fought to be where she was, what she had to do and sacrifice every day to be respected, she didn’t. She couldn’t. “Just because we didn’t get to love each other the way that we wanted, perhaps, doesn’t make what we had mean any less.”

His eyes were damp. Her hand rested on the back of his neck, and her thumb brushed lightly over the bare skin, reaching up to stroke through his hair. It ached, the weight of all the things he wanted to say, all the things he had wanted to give her. In the end, though, she had been happy just the same. Done things for the world that no one else had been able to, forged a path where so many others had failed. Just as she had done for Steve, she had been there for the world even when it had done little to repay her efforts. Perhaps they had never been destined for the white dress wedding and the picket fence ending after all.

“Thank you for this, Steve. For loving me. I know there are things you regret, but you ought to let them go.” She leaned up, just barely able to reach even with her heels, and pressed her lips to his. Leaning down, his hand came up to cup her face. He could taste a hint of the drink she’d had before coming here, even the lipstick he knew would be smudged over his own lips now. Their lips parted, but her face remained just inches from his, close enough that her features were blurred. He could still make out the glow of her eyes.

“This was enough. We were enough.”

She stepped back, smoothing back her hair. While every inch of him was begging to follow her, he knew that he could not change what had happened outside this moment, the sequence of events that followed.

Still, Peggy was right. This was enough.

“0800, Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there.”

“Don’t be late.”

The space where she had stood was filled soon enough by the natural movement of people within the bar, constantly shifting and shuffling to account for the crowd. Steve turned back, and for the first time, he saw who was sitting on the barstool behind him.

Bucky sat at the bar holding a glass of whiskey, swirling it around absentmindedly before downing it all at once. Noticing Steve’s stare, Bucky looked up, and smiled. Steve had known his friend long enough to know that it was more concession than congratulations, an effort at letting go. Raising his glass, Bucky tipped it in Steve’s direction, and turned away to order another drink.

* * *

 

Steve pulled off the glasses, and found that his eyes were streaming. He breathed in deeply, a wounded sound escaping when he tried to breathe out.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he found Tony, looking hesitant. The pressure on his shoulder was already lightening, as if Tony were preparing for the touch to be unwelcome.

“Thanks, Tony.” The knot around his neck had lessened. It was far from gone, but Steve could swallow around it now, could breathe.

Heaving in a deep, sniffling breath, he folded the glasses up, handing them to Tony. The hand on his shoulder moved to retrieve them, and Tony folded them neatly into the breast pocket of his suit, handing back an expensive looking silk handkerchief in exchange. Steve gave a watery snort.

“Into the handkerchief, Cap. Wouldn’t want you forgetting your manners.” Picking up the small projector disc from the table, Tony made for the door.

“Tony.”

Pausing, Tony glanced back. By now, Steve had made use of the handkerchief, and regained some of his composure. 

“You know this isn’t going to change my mind.”

The effect was palpable. Some of the tension snapped back into Tony’s shoulders, the hand gripping the chair tightening slightly. The words had the effect of a fired gun, reminding them both of the war they had taken a brief respite from.

This time, Tony did force a smile.

“I know, Cap. But you needed that, so I brought it anyways. That’s what friends do for each other.” Turning for the door a second time, Tony let his hand linger on the handle.

“We’re friends, Steve. Just...try and make room for that, along with all those noble morals and whatever else you’ve got rattling around up there.”

Steve thought of Bucky, sitting on the barstool, raising a glass. Of the friends he’d left behind, failed, and of the one he now had a chance to save.

“I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there were a lot of things I didn't like about Civil War, but at least I fixed one of them.


End file.
